


etched in bone; you stain like blood

by Cupcakemolotov



Series: come alive [34]
Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark Klaus Mikaelson, Dark fic, F/M, No Smut, Possessive Klaus Mikaelson, Post-Bite Conversation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 10:50:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14447733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cupcakemolotov/pseuds/Cupcakemolotov
Summary: Waking after Klaus chose to let her live, Caroline finds herself not on the couch but in his bed. And Klaus has a point to make.





	etched in bone; you stain like blood

**Author's Note:**

> written for the lovely romanoffsbite on tumblr.

Caroline woke, not quite remembering exactly when she'd fallen asleep. She remembered the searing pain of Klaus' bite. She vividly recalled the conversation that led to the taste of his blood on her tongue; her fingers twitched with the need to cup the healed skin of her neck. Instead, she cracked open her eyes and let out a shaky breath as she took in bedding that wasn't hers.

"Sleep well, love?"

She licked her lips and mentally braced herself before sitting up to look at Klaus. He was looking out a window, posture relaxed. As best she could tell it was still night, which meant only a few hours had passed. Klaus wore the same shirt and pants from before, and she was uncomfortably aware of the smell of her blood against her clothes.

Her gaze skittered across the contents of the room, stomach jumping as she realized what she was looking at. His room. This place felt like him, the faintest hint of acrylics under the lingering scent she associated with Klaus.

Why was she in his bed?

"Why am I here?" The words were blurted, a rush of sound to cover her shock.

Klaus turned and Caroline's stomach muscles went tight at the expression behind his eyes. He made no move to approach her, but there was something palpable between them in the air. Her hands curled tightly in the sheets and he smiled with a slow curve of his mouth.

"Should I have left you on the couch? Waited for your friends to retrieve you?"

"The way today has gone, why not?" Caroline responded sharply. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask if Tyler had come back, to see if he'd wanted to know if his gamble had worked. If any of her friends had risked his rage to collect her. But she already knew the answer, and she didn't want to give give him the satisfaction.

"Come now, Caroline," Klaus murmured as he shifted to face her fully. "Our discussion tonight has hardly started."

She pushed back the sheets and slid off his bed. It was unsettling, being barefoot in his presence. Her heels usually put them at eye level, gave her the impression of equal footing. Barefoot, he stood taller than her by only a few inches, but Klaus never relied on height to make an impression. The force of his presence, his lack of concern for personal space and his ability to read people was more than dangerous enough. She curled her toes against cool wood floors, and tried to ignore the intimacy.

"What could we possible have to discuss?" Caroline asked warily.

His hands slipped into his pockets, smile fading from his face. "Let's not play games, Caroline. We both know your friends will be frantically beating down my door soon enough, if not your mother. And you are very much alive."

Caroline crossed her arms. "Should I thank you, then?"

"We both know better than to expect that," Klaus said coolly. "What's done is done. So now we'll both live with the consequences."

"Consequences?" Caroline repeated, chin lifting. "For who?"

For the first time since she awoke, he moved towards her. Something about the way he prowled her had her heels sinking into the floor to keep from flinching. Her gaze narrowed as he reached out and brushed away a rumpled curl before he stroked the healed skin of her throat. She caught his hand and pushed it away, and set her teeth as his gaze returned to hers.

"Well, love, that will depend on you," Klaus laced his hands behind his back, watched her with eyes threaded gold. "Your little doppelgänger killed Kol."

She froze.

"I'm unlikely to forget or forgive as I'm certain you're aware," Klaus murmured, voice edged like a blade. "Silas is now a threat looming above your head, and this impossible cure a danger I cannot continue to ignore. So now I must ask the question - what to do with you?"

Danger pricked at her senses, fear a spike in her gut. There was iron in Klaus' gaze, a hint of the feral determination that made him such a terrible enemy. Licking dry lips, she shook her head. "Whatever you're thinking, no."

His lips curled in a hint of a smile, but it was chilling. "Now, sweetheart, we both know that's an impossibility. You've declared my feelings and I could not watch you die, and we both yet may come to regret that. So now we are at an impasse. You are a weakness, Caroline. You make me vulnerable, and tonight has proven I cannot so easily dispose of this."

Caroline lifted her chin, did not flinch back from the razors in his voice. "I'm not responsible for your emotions, Klaus."

"But will you take responsibility for playing them, Caroline?" He shifted his weight to his toes, and loomed close. "Because I will no longer be played. My brother is dead. A thousand years I've kept my family alive, and a bloody doppelgänger takes him from me."

She said nothing. What could she say? She felt the threat behind his eyes down to her bones, but she found herself unable to salt the wound.

"I want you to think very carefully about what's important to you, Caroline. Because I'm done being nice."

She narrowed her gaze. "What does that mean?"

His hand snaked around the nape of her neck, the other bruising against her hip. "It means I will not tolerate your games, love. No more free passes, no more little distractions. I may want you, I may be unable to crush this tenderness in my chest, but I'm not one of your teenage lovers. If you want my attention, you'll have it. But I think we both know you're not quite ready for that, are you?"

She flattened her hands on his chest and glared up at him. "I don't like threats."

"That's hardly a threat love. Merely a promise. A threat would be to spell you to this room, where I'd know you're safe. To trap you in a gilded cage of silk and decadence, until you forget what life is like outside the carnality of my bed. Until your mother and your friends fade to distant memories. Your eyes spit at me, but even a vampire can fight only so long. There are ways to break a person, Caroline, that do not require torture." Klaus dimpled at her, ran his thumb against the column of her throat. "That is a threat. And one you would do well to consider each time you choose to bait me."

Caroline held onto her bravado, but barely. Her monster was pressed tightly against her skin, her nails digging into his chest. Jaw working, she took a slow breath. "And one day, I'd kill you for it."

He laughed low in his throat, his grip easing on her hip. "You're still young, Caroline, but I've no doubt you'd try. I don't mind a little violence in my foreplay. But lucky for you, I want you willing. I've no intention of forcing you into my bed, when I can have you so sweetly begging."

"You're an ass," she snapped. "And that little speech is hardly winning you any favors."

"I'll make it up to you when you're willing," Klaus replied with a shrug. "It's important that you understand what you're dealing with, Caroline, because you're going to be dealing with me for a very long time."

"So you say," she ground out, putting a little more force behind her hands. He didn't budge.

"Silas will not wake."

She paused, frowning at him. "What?"

The hand curved around her neck squeezed, fingers digging into the tight muscles. His eyes laughed at her when she tightened further, thumb a glide against her nape. "Silas. I've no intention of letting him rise, and you will do whatever necessary to stop his resurrection."

"Here I thought you wanted the cure."

"To destroy it. It cost me a brother," Klaus said flatly. "Your friends are living on borrowed time."

She went painfully stiff under his hands. "Don't you dare touch them."

Klaus bent, so that they were nose to nose. "I wonder, how many more will you let be sacrificed on the pyre of the doppelgänger? But don't fret, love. I've no intention of touching a hair on their heads. In fact, I'll be leaving shortly, hence why you'll be running all necessary interference."

"You're leaving?" She didn't trust that smile, didn't want to examine the mix of relief and alarm.

"I'll be getting my brother back," Klaus said lightly. "Kol isn't forgiving. And when he comes to exact his revenge, you'll not interfere."

"Raising the dead is impossible."

"Hardly. You just haven't met the right witches. I know several." He grinned, and something about that smile had her stomach flipping. If he brought Kol back, she knew her friends would die. All of them. Caroline stared at Klaus and swallowed painfully.

"You think I'll just watch them die?"

"You're more than welcome to take your mother and leave. I'd be happy to make suggestions, open one of my homes to you."

She scoffed. "As if she'd go for that."

"But you would?" Klaus all but purred, smile curling into temptation.

Caroline lifted her chin. "You're hardly the worst devil I'd bargain with for my mom."

"Which brings me to my next point," Klaus murmured. "You will tell me should you require assistance, love."

"With Silas? Fine." She didn't want to raise him anyway and there were so many things wrong with Damon's plan.

"With anything."

"No." She refused to acknowledge the fingers delving through the curls at the base of her neck. "I mostly certainly will not."

"That was not a suggestion."

"Still a big, fat no." He bared his teeth, eyes bleeding gold as he pulled her onto her toes. She glared at the monster a hair's breadth from her mouth. "Don't bully me."

"Be smart about this, Caroline."

"Oh, I am." She jabbed her fingers into him, let her own monster slide into her eyes. "You want to come tangle with a near immortal monster, be my guest. But I haven't invited you into my life, and I won't have you looming over it like some primordial evil when I'm living it. So no, I won't use you like some get out of jail free card, and you're going to have to live with that. You want me, Klaus? We'll this is how you start. By respecting my choices."

"I will not compromise on your safety," Klaus rumbled, the wolf vivid in his voice. "You wanted to live sweetheart, we'll here we are."

"So let me live," she shot back. "I'm not yours Klaus, regardless of your feelings towards me."

"Shall we test that?"

"What?" Caroline nearly stuttered as the predator in his gaze shifted to something that left her blood running suddenly hot.

"How long do you think it'd take me to have you naked and wet against my tongue?"

"No."

Klaus' laughter puffed against her lips and he let her rest back on her heels. The hand at her hip lifted to brush her lips. "I've dreamed of you in my bed. I'll sleep surrounded by your scent tonight, the lingering taste of your blood on my sheets and against my tongue. But you're right. If I take you now, letting you go will never happen."

"You don't get to make the decision if I go or stay," she said stubbornly. "I'm not a toy."

"No," he murmured. "But this game between us will play out, be it centuries or decades from now. So I believe a little taste, just a touch of temptation is best. But I promise to feast later."

His lips were warm, and utterly soft against hers as he leaned into her. Coaxing. He coaxed her into the kiss with the velvet of his tongue and the heat of his hands. Her breath hitched as he seduced her mouth and her lips parted with a moan. Klaus continued to exchange those playful, wet kisses until she chased his tongue, her mouth and hands seeking more. He pulled back from her mouth with one last lick along her lip just as her phone started to ring. His eyes were feral and triumphant as he smoothed her kiss wet mouth with his thumb.

"Bits and pieces, Caroline. I'll continue to swallow you in in tiny bites, until I have all of you." He lifted her lax wrist to his mouth and nipped at the veins there. "Until you're all mine."


End file.
